3com rackmount UPS to rackmount server.

Update:

Finished up the cooling system. We couldn't get another antec, so we got 2 vantec thermaflows. I twisted the probe, which shorts the leads, and the fans are on full all the time. Now they are higher flow than the Antecs.
cooling3.jpg


The NIC is in and held down. I did this with the nibbler... ouch. I wanted to get the screw up higher but the bit drifted a tad I guess.
nicin.jpg


We got a tiny cheap powerable usb hub so I figured I would put it in. It just runs off of 5v. I hope I wired it correctly. I just matched up the colors.
usb2.jpg
 
Pherret said:
Update:
We got a tiny cheap powerable usb hub so I figured I would put it in. It just runs off of 5v. I hope I wired it correctly. I just matched up the colors.
usb2.jpg
Click to expand...
Black is ground, Red is 5v, and Yellow is 12v, at least thats the standard on all the ATX PSU's I have used. The Black (ground wire) should be to the inside, and there is normally 2 but you only need one but they both would be to the inside of the connector. From the picture it looks alright, but I can't see where the notchs are in the connector to make sure.
 
Oops I did a realy bad job of explaning that one.
I clipped and spliced the hub usb cable to the internal usb cable. Red, green, white and black all matched up from both cables. I hope it is a standard, because things can change easily.

The power molex was pulled from one of the fan power passthroughs I cut off of one of the 60mm fans. I merely pulled out the 12v and other gnd pin.
 
Pherret said:
Oops I did a realy bad job of explaning that one.
I clipped and spliced the hub usb cable to the internal usb cable. Red, green, white and black all matched up from both cables. I hope it is a standard, because things can change easily.

The power molex was pulled from one of the fan power passthroughs I cut off of one of the 60mm fans. I merely pulled out the 12v and other gnd pin.
Click to expand...
oh that, yea most usb cables keep a standard color scheme.
 
Nice job on the NIC install. BTW, they're back in stock at NewEgg.
 
Sorry about the wait guys, Ive been slowly progressing. The CD-roms come in today, so Ill probably take some pics of stuff and get em up later today.

The front plate is looking pretty ugly right now. I wanted to wait to post it until I already have it done and show the progress through it. Ill probably post what I have done up to tonight anyway.
 
here we go:

First, we did some extensive research on how to make harddrives flatter.
hddtrash1.jpg


Here's as low as this one would get.
hddtrash2.jpg


It took us a while to perfect.
hddtrash3.jpg

But in the end they wouldn't boot so we trashed the idea.

The cdroms are in. They come inside 2 different chassis portions. I pulled off the outer one, and left the smaller one on as it is more permanent and has well placed mounting screws. If you are familiar with laptop drives you will see this as a bit more "packaging" on them than normal.
cd1.jpg


Here is what Ive done to the front plate so far: USB access is open and the button placements have been cut. The drive is in top for size, not placement.
out1.jpg


And finally I have cut out the plate that will cover up the ugly portions. I have not made holes in it yet but I sat the power and reset buttons in their placements.
out2.jpg
 
lookin pretty good man..

you're making me want to attempt this more and more.. :)
 
Hellovan idea. We got a few of those laying around. Just might have to start a new project. Nice work you got goin there!
 
I need to find out when Syracuse University has their computer surplus sale; see if I can get some projects going.

This looks really sweet, love the compact idea. The only thing *I'd* change, being in an apartment, would be to ensure quiet fan operation.

I would presume the mobo is being screwed in place, did I miss that?

Keep up the good work!

J
 
Where's the new pix?
Damn you're slow...I'm getting tired of this high ping crap. ;)
..and what's this crap about wanting to underclock it? Did you forget that this is the [H]?
:D
 
Phezult said:
I need to find out when Syracuse University has their computer surplus sale; see if I can get some projects going.

This looks really sweet, love the compact idea. The only thing *I'd* change, being in an apartment, would be to ensure quiet fan operation.

I would presume the mobo is being screwed in place, did I miss that?
J
Click to expand...

As space constraints get tighter in case designs, quiet opperation becomes less and less possible. Air must move faster to get the same volumetric movement, and fast moving/higher pressure air = noise.

Also yes the mobo is held by 6 screws and stood off from the chassis by ~3/16" thick nonthreaded aluminum bushings. The screws go through the bushings and screw to the chassis.

relic said:
Where's the new pix?
Damn you're slow...I'm getting tired of this high ping crap. ;)
..and what's this crap about wanting to underclock it? Did you forget that this is the [H]?
:D
Click to expand...
Yeah Yeah.. I tried to post last night but there were forum issues. Damn you're whiny. They don't even know about the 2800+ yet anyway. (were gona put it in cause we have it and underclock/undervolt if necessary with that tiny hsf)

And here come the pix.

I got the front plate on and the buttons attached. I need to slap some labeling on there to get rid of all that blank space.
out5.jpg


The buttons on the front push on some momentary "microswitches" on the pcb and give a nice sharp click when pushed from the front.
out3.jpg


screwed in place... Pay no attention to the radioshack label. :p
out4.jpg


The rj-45 surge suppressor is relocated from the original placement where the mobo I/o Plate now resides. This is before the scew holes were tapped.
surge1.jpg


And mounted afterwards
surge2.jpg


Now the back panel is done. The mod could basically be finished now if I don't put in the cd-rom, but of course I am required to now. I hope to atleast make the brackets tonight and, if Im lucky, get the front plate cut for it. Then I would be able to button it up and move on to proper peripheral mounting ;)

Sorry about the all the diferent pic sizes Im trying to be bandwidth conscious.
 
tom61 said:
I like what you did for the front buttons, rather novel.
Click to expand...

All regular screw down buttons you can find are a combination of black red and silver, and rather non-large like. I felt this needed a bigaz power button, and one that matched the rest of the case. The powerbutton is realy a chopped down pot knob, and the reset button is a rounded and painted piece of the plastic cut from the front plate. I myself am quite amazed that it all actually worked out.

theshadow27 said:
i love the design... you did a great job

i would get some rj45 connectors and some cat 5 and make the surge protector internal... like http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=801460 sortof

it would make it neater in the end

but great job
Click to expand...

That guy still connected his NICs externally to the ports. Though, I see that you are only using that as an example

That would require soldering to the NIC to get the connector off and whatnot. Im trying to keep things pretty non-proprietary so things can be quickly swapped in and out if they die.

Thanks though guys for all the ideas and support. :)

And on to CD-Rom mounting.
cd2.jpg


I dremeled at a frenzied pace to cut the brackets. They are a bit sloppy on the edges but the screw holes lined up better than any other hole has sofar. And no sharp edges.
cd3.jpg

And its much more sturdy than it looks.

I also painted the back with the same textured white as the front cover plate. I gave it a single shot of clear to lessen the abrasiveness, where as the front plate got 2.
back2.jpg


All thats left for modification is to cut the slot in the bezel for the cd-rom to be accessed.

Nearly done? can't be! ;)
 
Pherret, an interesting mod idea would be to find somewhere to stuff a mini-ups in there so you don't have to worry in a power outage that your router/firewall will go down. ;)
 
1st pic, we already have 2: The white one on the right and a black one in the back. I believe the white one was just charging and not connected to anything.
 
Sweet mod :cool: . I'll have to try something like that for my servers. The smaller the box the better :D
 
So, Pherret...
1.) What happens when you ignore the advice of you're older and wiser relic and forget to test the switches before installing them? :p

2.) Could you teach me how to install a HSF again? ;)



edit: Don't worry guys, he didn't fry anything....yet. :D
 
It's running, everything works, and it looks hella like a 3Com UPS. ;)
Now if he'd just stop screwin' off, put it in the rack, and post the final pics....
 
Ehem.. Looks hella like a 3com 1.5u server to me. :p

Does posting from the firewall count as an update?

Ill comment on the "issues" we had later.

I don't know what was plugging my ears when I heard the psu the first time. This sucker is loud. :eek:
 
Ever thought about for the HDD, since it looks like where you are mounting it that it'll have some space above it - of putting some sort of riser-styled brackets to mount it to, and putting a fan beneath it?
 
Update

Here is the front pretty much all finished up. I hope I will get some labels on the cover plate. Just cuz
out6.jpg


The insides:
layout2.jpg


Test fit on the rack:
rack2.jpg


The "Issues":

-The hsf slid down the spring clip and made it ride on the edge of the core. Would auto-shutoff after about 3 seconds. Worked fine after reattachment.

-The buttons are the only ones I have seen that can be installed wrong. And I did just that, but for the record I did test to see what pins were what... I just forgot afterwards I guess.
 
Pherret said:
Ehem.. Looks hella like a 3com 1.5u server to me. :p
Click to expand...

Word. :)

But it sounds more like an angry swarm of hornets packed into a riced-out lawn tractor.
 
Very nice. I like how clean and simple it was all kept. Now if I only had a house... The nubmer of projects I want to do, doubles every day.

Nice wire management on the rack too.
 
Sorry about the post cutoff. We finally got the firewall setup and running. Things got a little busy around here, and we procrastinated a bit.

The final word on why we went with a 3rd party program on an xp os is that the program we are using is certified up to level 3 firewall, where smoothwall is only certified up to level 2. What that exactly means I am not too sure about. Im not too knowledgable on firewalling, myself.

I realised that the roller rails I got for free were probably about 6in too long. Our rack is rather shallow, so to make any type of tray work It would have to stick out a few inches when closed.

Currently I am working on a 1u fileserver to hold a bunch of small stuff like drivers and various downloads. Its mostly a convenience item so I don't haveto scramble to backup stuff on cds and whatnot before I reload my system after an upgrade or something. Because we all know you always miss something anyway. Im just putting it together with a bunch of parts I had lying arround.

I will only have a 40gig in it but, like I said, It wonn't be holding very big files. I don't pirate movies and krap like that :p
 
Pherret said:
Sorry about the post cutoff. We finally got the firewall setup and running. Things got a little busy around here, and we procrastinated a bit.

The final word on why we went with a 3rd party program on an xp os is that the program we are using is certified up to level 3 firewall, where smoothwall is only certified up to level 2. What that exactly means I am not too sure about. Im not too knowledgable on firewalling, myself.
Click to expand...

What is the name of that software?
 
The software is Winrout, which was recently bought out by Kerio I believe.

As far as the file server goes, it is on the home stretch. I just finished the power connections and got it to post. Now all that is to solder up little bits like leds.

Ill try to remember to get some pics before it goes on the rack.
 
Your making me rethink my idea of rackmounting both of my servers.... damn anyway love what u did came out really clean :D
 
Damn.. I always forget to take pics. I already mounted the fileserver.

Sofar I have transfirred about 8-10 gigs of stuff over and thats nearly all I need right now.

I'm currently having fun with remote desktop, as I am posting from it now, and the only things connected to it is power and LAN ! :D

Oah yeah, thanks guys for all the kind words. :)
 
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